More

Judge: Ala. Abortion Clinic Law Unconstitutional

TO GO WITH AFP STORY BY BRISEIDA MEMA
A pregnant Albanian woman watches her baby in the monitor as a doctor performs a sonogram in Tirana on November 9, 2011. In Albania, abortion was legalised on the eve of the Communist regime's fall in the 1990s. Since then, it has become almost a favourite method to chose the sex of its child, several local rights groups warn. According to a law adopted in April 2002, sex-selective abortion is forbidden, but there are no specific sanctions for breaching the law, experts say. AFP PHOTO / GENT SHKULLAKU (Photo credit should read GENT SHKULLAKU/AFP/Getty Images)

File photo of a woman undergoing an ultrasound. (Photo by GENT SHKULLAKU/AFP/Getty Images)

U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson ruled Monday that state lawmakers exceeded their authority when they passed a law last year requiring doctors at abortion clinics to have hospital admitting privileges.

Thompson issued an order temporarily blocking enforcement of the law.

Thompson’s decision comes days after a federal appeals court blocked a similar law in Mississippi.

Planned Parenthood and others filed a lawsuit over the Alabama law last year.

Supporters of the law say it would make clinics safer. Clinic operators say the law would force the shutdown of all but two of Alabama’s five clinics.

Thompson says the Alabama law would place an undue burden on women.

(Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)